The Trump administration put out a new ad this weekend as part of its “PSA” campaign, this time showing President Donald Trump walking down a hallway as he asks people to join him in his fight to “expel the warmongers from our government.”The ad — which at the end says it was “Paid for by the U.S.government” — is nearly identical to an ad put out by Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign.
Trump posted that ad to Truth Social in January 2024.The repurposed ad now includes “Paid for by the U.S.
government.” But it excludes the last few seconds of the 2024 ad, which ends with text reading “Join President Trump’s fight to save America” and his 2024 campaign logo.The ad signals an expansion of the White House’s controversial use of government funds to air pieces that resemble campaign advertisements.Last week, the White House ran a television ad in which Trump described how he wanted to “defeat communism,” set to the song “Love Me” by JMSN.
The White House has called the ads “public service announcements.”In the latest ad, dramatic black-and-white video shows President Trump walking down a hallway with audio of him saying it is the “final battle” and vowing to “demolish the deep state” and “throw off the sick political class that hates our country.” “We will rout the fake news media, and we will liberate America from these villains once and for all,” it concludes.Federal law requires political advertisers to submit certain public disclosures and generally bans using public funds for political advertising.Since the administration maintains the ads are public service announcements, it’s not clear whether those disclosures are available.
The White House has not released a specific source of government funding used to air the ads.The White House defended the ad Sunday, pointing NBC News to a statement it had offered last week when it commented on the other ads released by the administration.“These public service a...